Wednesday, 10 April 2013

Outcasts talk

For anyone interested in Outcasts and within reach of London, I will be giving a talk on the background to the forthcoming vote on Gibraltar's UEFA membership application as part of the Sport Business Centre Seminar Series at Birkbeck College on April 18.

The seminar also cover how other overseas dependencies are treated in international football and the problems facing other aspiring FIFA members from Kosovo to Kiribati, including areas covered in the epilogue of the new Kindle edition of Outcasts, which was published before Christmas.

The seminar starts at 6:00pm and entrance is free. For further details go to the Birkbeck Sport Business Centre website.

This blog is about those footballing nations not recognised by FIFA. I've written about them in my book, "Outcasts! The Lands That FIFA Forgot", which was shortlisted for NSC football book of the year award in the 2008 and is published by Know The Score Books.

NEW EDITION OF OUTCASTS NOW AVAILABLE ON KINDLE. NEW PHOTOS AND EPILOGUE - FOR MORE DETAILS CLICK HERE.

Blog traffic: More than 300,000 page views on this blog since July 2007

With forewords by Adrian Chiles and David Conn."Outcasts! The Lands That FIFA Forgot" examines the much tarnished reputation of FIFA, the governing body of world football, and just how they justify the exclusion of some 'nations' while welcoming others - either for reasons of political expediency, or because FIFA just believed they could not compete with the likes of Montserrat on the world stage.

REVIEWS FOR OUTCASTSOutcasts! is a must-read for all football fans - Sporting Life

Excellent - Scotland on Sunday

Menary is an enthusiast with a talent for getting the best out of his interviewees and a keen eye for the encapsulating episode - Daily Telegraph

As good as it gets - Birmingham Post

Buy this - The Times

Lively, informative - The Independent on Sunday

Thought provoking questions about the nature of national identity - Four Four Two

One book that might intrigue the discerning reader - Sunday Telegraph

Menary is an admirably sure-footed guide ... he never loses sight of the human stories ... a gentle meditation not merely on the power of football, but also on what it means to be a country - Jonathan Wilson

BY THE SAME AUTHORGB United? British Olympic Football and the end of the amateur dream (Pitch 2010)

Menary does an outstanding job. GB United? is a historical tome telling a story that has been forgotten and overlooked elsewhere. This story is as much about a class struggle in twentieth century Britain as anything else, but in this case it was a struggle that the ruling class were always going to lose.Those that ran the game at the start of the twentieth century may well look at modern football and wonder what on earth it has become, but GB United? tells a part of the story that is seldom looked at elsewhere with a keen eye for historical detail, a dry sense of humour and a mixture of disdain and respect for those that ended up shaping many of the paths that modern football would end up taking - Twohundredpercent

Exemplary research, grasp of his material and eye for a quirky fact keep up the interest - Independent on Sunday

Menary carefully explains how amateurism or 'shamateurism' gradually became unacceptable in this country, with everyone being declared just 'players' in 1974.He recounts not only the sad decline of Vivian Woodward, a superb centre-forward and a member of the British team in 1908 and 1912, but also the exploits of Pegasus, who galvanised the amateur game in the early 1950s. It is a valuable contribution to football literature - The Olympian